Outside the Beltway

Nyamko Sabuni

Kate McMillan · Wednesday, October 25, 2006 · 2 comments

Sweden’s new Muslim immigration minister is making waves…

…arguing that all girls should be checked for evidence of female circumcision; arranged marriages should be criminalised; religious schools should receive no state funding; and immigrants should learn Swedish and find a job.

Supporters of the centre-right government that came to power last month believe that her bold rejection of cultural diversity may make her a force for change across Europe. Her critics are calling her a hardliner and even an Islamophobe.

(Where have we seen that before?)

Muslim groups in Sweden are already organising a petition to have her removed from government. “I regret that Muslims feel I am a threat to them,” she said. “Everybody has a right to practise their religion, but I will never accept religious oppression. And I represent the whole of society, not just the Muslims.”

Despite her ascendancy in her adopted country, Sabuni says that Sweden, where immigrants — half of them Muslims — make up nearly 12% of the population, has been only moderately successful at integration: “We have a whole underclass of people who don’t have jobs, who don’t speak the language and who are living on the fringes of society.”

Although fighting discrimination is one of her stated aims, she effectively closed down a Centre Against Racism last week by withdrawing its £400,000 state funding. By chance, the centre was run by her uncle.

“It didn’t achieve its aims,” she said bluntly. “It simply didn’t do what it set out to do, so I had to pull the plug.

Via Pieter Dorsman;

Again it is very often immigrants from outside Europe (Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Afshin Ellian) who are able to identify much better than native Europeans what is wrong and that drastic measures are needed to benefit both immigrants and their host nations. And somehow I am also beginning to sense that women are far better in delivering these blunt messages (witness Dutch immigration czar Rita Verdonk) than men.